Seems like they were the original art and sculpts for Aphrodite and Circe, but Monolith had someone else do less wild versions instead. Since the sculpts already existed, might as well sell them as an add-on. Makes sense.

On one hand it's extra stuff that doesn't mean anything other than sexy bits for the sake of sexy bits.

On the other, I want to get it just to sell it off to someone once the project delivers.

Yeah, not keen on it really. I feel like all the sculpts have been ok and within acceptable tolerances considering the theme. But these... Blerg...

But, I can just ignore them so... mehNot suprised though and they could at least have some dudes showing a bit of doodlebug.

Not that I'm into that but equity and all.

As I said in the campaign comments, having a pin-up dude does not mean equity necessarily, at least not genre equity as it would mostly appeal to men still, only gay men. Which would be fine if they want to do that, but I guess that's not what people are defending when say it needed a male pin-up.

Some women do like beefcake, but even then, a shirtless man in a less ridiculous position will be in most cases much more attractive to them (and yes, I have worked with pools regarding sexuality). And we have plenty of that in the game already.

Sometimes we carry some banners without much necessity. We do not say that we need more naked men on the Playboy pages to even things out. Boardgames and specially skirmish/war ones are essentially a male hobby. Granted, it is not a male magazine, but we are talking about two optional sculpts that are mostly humorous than anything else, so I guess it is balanced.

And I have yet to find a woman that finds a male mini sexy (I know they exist, but we actually never found one). Most adjectives are interesting, stunning, beautiful (in the artistic sense). Pictures are another thing, but they often give more context and most women like that much more.

When playing games women look for women minis, looking for identification and a bit of idealization. The right idea, maybe, to balance things is to include more women minis, with a strong, independent vibe - and still beautiful.

In any case, on general media the issue of equity is a more pressing one. On niche, expensive products on the internet with a very definite target audience, not so much, and this kind of fan service actually helps to push the stretch goals.

Boardgames of this kind also has mostly a male audience and although puerile, this kind of stuff always attracts attention and pledges.

Quote:

Campaigns like this one benefits from having something for everyone.

It would be interesting to know how many took this add-on as the final push to finally back vs. how many considered it the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of too much cheesecake and decided not to back. Sadly we'll never know.

Boardgames of this kind also has mostly a male audience and although puerile, this kind of stuff always attracts attention and pledges.

Quote:

Campaigns like this one benefits from having something for everyone.

It would be interesting to know how many took this add-on as the final push to finally back vs. how many considered it the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of too much cheesecake and decided not to back. Sadly we'll never know.

I'll be honest, I'm backing for the sexy female sculpts. I love painting female miniatures. I let out a huge laugh when I saw the pig sculpt and I just had to have it. And I'm going to tell you something, I'm not alone. For every person screaming at the top of their lungs "this is sexist" there are dozens of dudes like myself who like a little cheesy fantasy tropes in their games. It's fun. The success of campaigns that embrace this style of art is not a coincidence.

It's just a genre my wife and I love. We get even more love out of it when we hear dudes like the goofs at SU&SD argue that every game like this is sexist and harmful to women. Comedy gold!

Boardgames of this kind also has mostly a male audience and although puerile, this kind of stuff always attracts attention and pledges.

Quote:

Campaigns like this one benefits from having something for everyone.

It would be interesting to know how many took this add-on as the final push to finally back vs. how many considered it the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of too much cheesecake and decided not to back. Sadly we'll never know.

But we can infer. There are much more comments praising the add-on or neutrals than comments saying that they did not like it. And the ones saying that they did not like it do repeat themselves a lot (which is natural - I did not liked the Enceladus sculpt and complain about it constantly).

If you consider that people are most likely to engage and manifest themselves when they did not like something and add the fact that the campaign numbers did accelerate as expected, I think it is safe to say that it at least did not hurt. And the update does have a lot of likes...

I don't need to count butts, friend, because that's a waste of time and stupid.

Again, your comparison is a little silly. Why is it people think the Hawkeye Initiative is somehow a scathing commentary on the state of comics? Don't get me wrong, I love that shit and I think it's hilarious; however, it's intellectually dishonest. Men and women find different things attractive. So you can't really compare a figure of a dude bending over and biting his lip to a woman doing the same pose because women typically don't find shit like that sexy. But don't take my word for it, go out there big guy and test that shit out! Let me know how many women you attract!

I'm not saying anything against people who want to avoid purchasing this product for stuff like this. I respect their decision. But thinking the comparison is fair . . . sorry, it's not. And another thing, I don't really care what is and is not equal in a bloody board game. It's perfectly fine to have games that appeal to one gender over another. There is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't hurt anyone or the hobby.

I'll leave it at that since I know where this thread will end up if this conversation continues.

That's a fantasy setting. All that wardrobe would be weird in public. That said, I have seen plenty of cosplays very much alike what is on display on the game (pin-ups included, with a little bit more cover but not much). And on the beaches here in Brazil everybody uses less clothing than in the game and are accepted in public.

Context is everything.

Is it ok to have 5 naked girls and 2 dudes with underwear in the middle of the street? Well maybe it is a little inappropriate and certainly unbalanced.

Is it ok to have some women a bit more under-dressed than man in a fantasy setting, in a niche game, targeted towards men, sold on the internet, that replicates the tropes of the genre? Well, I think it is perfectly fine.

Seems like they were the original art and sculpts for Aphrodite and Circe, but Monolith had someone else do less wild versions instead. Since the sculpts already existed, might as well sell them as an add-on. Makes sense.

This is indeed what happened. If you reread the update, it all makes sense. These were the original sculpts, Monolith/Mythic had an internal disagreement on the "sexiness" of the sculpts, and as a compromise they decided to make them available as an add-on.

I should add that my objection was not to the sculpts, it was to the fact that this add-on doesn't actually ADD any gameplay value.

I thought the first Circe was just Medea part 2. I love Paolo's Circe! Totally over the top, but it works! I actually prefer the *standard* Aphrodite. And the pigs are great. I love the flexibility. This was never going to be new gameplay, so I liked what they did with it.

Boardgames of this kind also has mostly a male audience and although puerile, this kind of stuff always attracts attention and pledges.

Quote:

Campaigns like this one benefits from having something for everyone.

It would be interesting to know how many took this add-on as the final push to finally back vs. how many considered it the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of too much cheesecake and decided not to back. Sadly we'll never know.

But we can infer. There are much more comments praising the add-on or neutrals than comments saying that they did not like it. And the ones saying that they did not like it do repeat themselves a lot (which is natural - I did not liked the Enceladus sculpt and complain about it constantly).

If you consider that people are most likely to engage and manifest themselves when they did not like something and add the fact that the campaign numbers did accelerate as expected, I think it is safe to say that it at least did not hurt. And the update does have a lot of likes...

Except that it doesn't take into account people who were on the fence, hadn't backed at all, and decided not to in the end, since those folks can't comment on the project since they're not backers.

Anyway, I appreciate folks like broken clock who are honest and straightforward about their position, even if I don't agree. There are some projects where it's worth fighting for more sensible (IMO) representations of women, but a game about Greek mythology is likely not one of them. Similarly I didn't jump into the Conan and Kingdom Death: Monster Kickstarters and start complaining about representation since there's a well-established lore there so one knows what to expect, even if I consider the "well, it's been that way a long time" argument pretty weak.

I was hoping for a different direction for this particular project, but the more SGs were unveiled the more obvious it wasn't going that route and the Parente designs were the icing on the cake. Still haven't decided if I'll back it and just put away the more egregious cheesecake figures, but the writing has been on the wall for some time now so no sense in complaining. Just need to decide for myself what I want to do and I have less than 48 hours to do it.

As mentioned already, it's pretty clear that these were pre-existing sculpts that at some point along the way it was decided they didn't fit the art direction of the game and so were replaced. That left the choice of doing something with the sculpts or binning them. I wouldn't have liked Paolo's Circe as the standard option as it looks like it belongs to do a different game, but it works great as an optional alt.

Well I am happy they are not the main sculpts, I like the ones they used for that a lot more. To me those look more beautifull as well.

There's already more stuff available than what I can afford so its no problem that I have no interest at all in this one but some plastic rocks for the elevated terrain would have been nice. We have not been given an alternative yet for what comes in the main box, and we never got to truly see the elevated terrain of the main box properly.

When it comes to alternative sculpts I would have prefered alternative versions of sculpts that where in highest demand. But I can see how they wanted to put these sculpts to use too so I can agree with their reasoning.

Still haven't decided if I'll back it and just put away the more egregious cheesecake figures, but the writing has been on the wall for some time now so no sense in complaining.

Sell 'em or trade 'em. As much as the miniature-hating crowd doesn't like games with miniatures, you'll make more money selling off the miniatures on a game (eg. Games Workshop Silver Tower and KD:M) than you would the game itself. The KS will *still* come with enough units that you won't miss anything you deem offensive, whether it be the depiction of women, anything demonic in nature, or whatever. The original Mythic Battles and its expansions might still be in print, for anyone who doesn't think games should have plastic man-dollies.